Published: Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 3:15 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 at 3:47 p.m.

Lou Landrum

Lou Landrum resigned from a successful management position with the Department of Social Services to direct the ailing Spartanburg Soup Kitchen.

Alex C. Hicks Jr./alex.hicks@shj.com

But in Spartanburg County, He provided Lou Landrum, and she keeps the food coming — from businesses, Scout troops, restaurants, schools, and civic groups.

If that sounds like a stretch, then visit Spartanburg's beautiful new soup kitchen at 136 South Forest St. and talk to her. She is a living example of what people who have faith and hope can do, and the kitchen she oversees is a godsend to the people it serves.

Answering a call

Eleven years ago, Landrum made a decision that shocked those who knew her. She resigned from a management position with the Department of Social Services, where she had been very successful under governors Carroll Campbell, David Beasley and Jim Hodges, to become the director of a church soup kitchen on the brink of collapse. This looked like a job that could evaporate with the next shortfall in donations.

“When I first left DSS to become the director, the church almost made the decision to completely shut the soup kitchen down,” she says. “No funds were coming in, it was just a mess. But I knew, by taking that leap of faith, I could become an advocate for those who are hungry. ... I knew it was up to me to make sure the doors remained open.”

She felt her decision to take on the job was divine intervention. “Typically, I shouldn't have known they were looking for a director,” she says. “But I found out, and I went there that Monday with a resume. I think maybe I got the phone call Tuesday to say that if I wanted to be interviewed, they would set one up.”

The day of her interview at Second Presbyterian Church, the host site of the kitchen, she felt so sick that she almost did not go.

“I felt horrible,” she says. “I had never felt that bad in my entire life.”

But at the last minute, she got up anyway, got dressed, and went.

Several days later they called her back and asked her to come observe the operation for a day. When she went, an episode at the soup kitchen deeply touched her:

“I have never seen this couple again,” she says, “But this particular day there was a man who was blind, and a lady was with him. And everybody — the lines were not as long as they are now — but everybody moved back to let them go to the front. And I knew that was my signal that I needed to come.”

When she started, the volunteers were demoralized and expecting the kitchen to close at the end of the year. There were days when all they could offer was potato soup because someone had left a sack of potatoes at the door. Nevertheless, “I knew I had enough faith that I was going to turn it around,” she says.

Landrum's faith is marked by works. Her action plan included several steps.

She gets the word out. ”People were driving by; they were oblivious to me. So it was up to me to get to the churches and say, ‘Can you bring us some canned goods? Can you help us out?' And as I saw people would listen, I just started talking.”

She networked in the community, telling the story of the soup kitchen at churches and civic groups. She still makes such presentations in the evenings.

Then she started getting story ideas and called TV stations and the newspaper. She had no experience or relationships with the media, but “reporters came and wanted to see what we did,” she said. Now she is a media veteran. She even does a monthly guest appearance on the morning radio show “Awake with Bill Drake” on WOLT-FM.

“Sometimes by the time I drive back from the station, food is already here. Blankets are already here, because I am talking and being a spokesperson for these people.”

She contacts the business community. Food Lion, for example, is a major donor of groceries for the soup kitchen. Milliken donated the stainless steel sinks, stoves and other equipment from an industrial site it closed in Georgia.

Little Caesars, Panera Bread, and other restaurants routinely donate food at the end of the business day, and churches, civic organizations and student groups often have food drives.

She works hard. For Landrum, 70- to 80-hour weeks are routine. She also is a micromanager, keeping up with everything, fielding many phone calls, and tracking donations for corporate donors and her board. On a recent weekday, after overseeing the soup kitchen, she spoke at an evening church meeting in Inman to explain once more that hunger is a serious issue in the region, “one of the greatest issues I feel families face. I think it is underestimated.”

She inspires people to help. She knows her army of volunteers. She greets them everyday.

“Bill Drake asked me just this past Thursday, ‘You have all these volunteers. How do you keep them?' Because I have a rapport with each volunteer,” she says.

When people come to the soup kitchen and want to see her, she makes sure they do.

“A lot of people come by now, since we are over here. They want to see Lou. No matter what I am doing, I am going to always take time to meet with people who think enough of us to come by to see me and make a donation. Because that is what it is all about. It is about people seeing that you believe in what you do.”

As a result of her efforts to tell others how they can help, people are no longer oblivious to the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen.

“I can't go anywhere now that I am not known,” she says. “I have gotten $500 checks from people in Walmart. They say, ‘You know, we were going to get by there. But we see you here, so we've got something for you.' Now that is a lot of faith to know you can be shopping in Walmart and you can leave with a $500 check.”

Not done yet

With so much accomplished, is her time of faith over? After all, she is networked. The business community, civic groups, media know her. She has plenty of volunteers. But she says just the opposite is true. She says she needs more faith now than when she started.

The new soup kitchen is in a “pocket of poverty,” where the need is greatest. The facility now may serve 600 or more guests per day. On top of that, the Great Recession increased the needs, often for people who never thought they would need the help.

“I have never walked in the shoes they have walked in, but I certainly can say it could happen to anybody,” Landrum says. “They could probably take those shoes off and you could fit right in them.”

For example, about three years ago, a former DSS coworker of Landrum's walked into the soup kitchen. State budget cuts had wiped out her job — the kind of safe, secure job people had told Landrum she was crazy to leave.

“She said, ‘I am embarrassed to ask you, but do you have any more milk?' ” Landrum says. “And I left that day thinking … you never know. And maybe sometimes you don't have to walk in other people's shoes. But you certainly can have compassion.”

That's why Landrum is going to stay on her divine assignment, as she says, “chasing hunger.”

“I feel that is why God put me here on earth,” she says, and it requires a growing faith in Him.

“If I lost any faith, I think everything would diminish. Even being here. I don't ever want to feel like, ‘Oh, I can become complacent now.' It is still a leap of faith that keeps these doors open. Now more than ever. Because there are more expenses. We have gone from incurring maybe $5,000 a month to $20,000 a month. That's $15,000 more a month!”

Moving from Second Presbyterian Church to South Forest Street has been the biggest leap of faith yet, she says. “We are here, and we need to stay here. So that faith cannot diminish at all.”

However, the journey has been amazing. Today she stands in a sparkling clean, brightly painted dining facility with an industrial kitchen full of stainless steel equipment and giant freezers. A professional sign with a logo designed by an ad agency decorates the bright white exterior. It took hard work by a lot of people to make the soup kitchen a part of Spartanburg.

“When you see that sign, ‘Spartanburg Soup Kitchen,' on the outside, it should also say underneath it, ‘Faith,'” Landrum says. “Because we are here on that kind of faith.”

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